By Barbara Kralis

©Barbara Kralis 2004
Catholic Online

As children we asked the pretty nun, "How did the Blessed Mother die?  Where is her body?"

Taking a deep breath, Sister Christine Joseph answered, "Mary was taken by her Son into the glory of heaven."

Sister knew her catechism well.  She did not say how Mary died, nor did she speculate when, nor did she mention that Mary went ‘up there’ or ‘down there.’  Sister simply and correctly said she was "taken by her Son."

Thus started the lofty theological and dogmatic education of 22 first graders at Cathedral Academy, Albany, N. Y.

We sat in class ‘alphabetically,’ that is, according to our last names.  My last name, ‘Arthur’ consigned me to the first row of old wooden desks that ran parallel to the hot water radiators along the windowed wall. 

The Blessed Mother stood approximately 5 feet from my face.  She was a statue, of course, and she regally stood on top of the metal radiator cover.  As ‘Queen of Heaven and Earth,’ a gold crown lay on her lovely head.

For the next nine months, I looked at her, and she looked at me.  That is when I first fell in love.  The Blessed Mother captured my heart.

It would, coincidentally, be two months later that the Church would promulgate unto Mary the dogmatic title of "The Glorious Assumption."  From that moment on, the Church teaches that after her Glorious Assumption into heaven, Mary our Mother would bring us all the graces from her Son. 

The Church celebrates the feast of the ‘Assumption of the Blessed Virgin’ or ‘assumere’[1] on August 15.  It has always been a Holy Day of Obligation for all Catholics.

It is interesting to note that the Orthodox and other Eastern Churches observe this feast under the title of ‘The Dormition,’ or ‘the Falling Asleep of the All-holy Mother of God.’

Pope Pius XII in his 1950 papal bull ‘Munificentissimus Deus,’ infallibly defined that the ‘Glorious Assumption’ is divinely revealed.[2]  It is therefore the fourth Marian dogma, and is an article of faith.  In other words, in order to be Catholic, one must believe in this teaching.

In defining the dogma of the Assumption, Pius XII wanted to propose to the Church a renewed pledge of hope.  In the Virgin risen with Christ, the Church advancing toward the Parousia[3] already has realized the consummation of its mystery.  That is, one day (we pray) our bodies shall rise from their graves and be reunited with our souls in Heaven.

While the Church does not rely on direct evidence of the Assumption in the bible, it implicitly argues from Mary’s fullness of grace as ‘Mother of God’ (Lk. 1:28).  The doctrine is part of the Sacred Tradition handed down over the centuries. 

Because Mary so closely shared in Christ’s redemptive mission on earth, she deserved to join him also in bodily glorification.

Perhaps no other subject is spoken about with such intensity and love by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen than that of the Blessed Mother.  The Archbishop said often, "If you are devoted to Our Lady, you will never lose your soul."

Here, below, is a popular Bishop Sheen vignette.

By Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

How could we fail to love her whom our Lord loved so much?  It is impossible to love Christ adequately without also loving the Mother who gave Him to us.

Those who begin by ignoring her soon end by ignoring him, for the two are inseparable in the great drama of redemption.

As children who wish to influence their father go to their mother to intercede for them, so do we go to Mary.

It is absolutely impossible to convey to anyone outside the Church the filial devotion we bear that sweet Mother of Mothers.

Devotion to the Blessed Mother brought me to the discovery of a new dimension of the sacredness of suffering.

When I had open-heart surgery, only gradually did it dawn on me during my first four months in the hospital that the Blessed Mother not only gives sweets, but she also gives bitter medicine.

Seventy pints of blood[4] were poured into my body after open-heart surgery because for a long time the body refused to circulate the blood.  This blood ...